'89 lachssilber 318i touring.. beginning build

[Heitzke]

Just picked up my first E30 here a few weeks ago from Roguetoaster on here. Glad to keep it here in the r3v family and continue doing something with it.

Plans are... not sure yet.

First things are to make it back into a fully functioning and decent shape E30 touring again. After the mechanical and cosmetic odds and ends it needs, then I'll move into suspension and then to junking the M40 for something that's better than 'adequate'. I keep changing my mind on motors, but it's not really at the top of the list right now anyway.

First pictures are all stolen off his images, just because it's cool to have some pics of it sitting at the port in Poland ready for the trip over.


















Anyhow, so I flew up from Nashville and met him outside Baltimore. Saw the car and knew I loved it instantly. M40 makes an 'adequate' amount of power for now, but the car is reasonably solid for the age and ~168k miles. There were a few things that needed some attention but surprises.

Of course, I had some business to take care of Philly that weekend, so I slapped some 6yr old Texas plates and drove it up that same day.

Loading up my crap for the trip:



Outside his buddies place, Kershaw (I think?) on here. You can also see my brake position switch issue there too. Sticking a bit, but I'll probably break it during removal anyway, so new one it is.



It turns like a jillion rpm's on the highway



Anyhow, made it up to Philly with no surprises. It's amazing how bloated cars have gotten.



Trip home, Philly is a cool ass city.



Sort of lame, but whatever, it is/was fitting



My long day turned into a long night, but shit, it was ~900miles from Philly to Nashville.

So this was strange, have a random glow behind some warning lights but they're technically not "on"


Inconsistently on too. Took this just a few minutes later:



Grabbed some food in Lexington, only ~4hrs to go from here



Blurry but don't care, was tired AF



and rolled up home just before midnight

[Heitzke]

Naturally, had to start off working on and assessing some smaller items. Upon receiving the car I knew I had some small stuff to do:

- 1 city light out
- driver fog busted
- passenger fog intact but in-op
- brake position switch sticking
- headunit sucks ass
- some interior lights (the little 2721's) blown out
- blower motor sounds like a squirrel death match
- rear end swap (seems to be pinion bearing) and Roguetoaster sent me home with a replacement 4.10 small case
- power steering lines leak


Figured starting with the lights was pretty safe. Inspecting the driver light closely, I see why the city light was out.


Of course the bulb socket is all dried out, and doesn't hold the bulb particularly well. Amusingly enough, pulling apart the driver grill and lights, I found another 2 city light bulbs loose in there. Pinched the socket fingers in a bit, and actually holds now.

In pulling out the headlight, found a socket that leads to nowhere. Maybe the driver side fog? It's cracked anyway, but weird that this is floating around there.



After this, I "fixed" the foglight by rapidly pushing the button over and over again for a few days. It didn't work at all, but then I left it on one day and while taking a spin I suddenly got the green fog indicator. Pushed the button back off/on again and got nothing, haha.

Over the course of a few days, the fog started working more and more frequently until now, where it works 100% of the time. I probably just needed to pull the switch and clean it out.




Started pulling interior plastics to get a good cleaning going, and also fix those little bulbs








This is what I THINK is a wireless remote system? I've found people using it on german forums, but google translate is making everything hard to follow. Halp?

You can see it's pretty tapped into the existing wiring. I want to just go ahead and remove it, but if it's something somewhat useful, I may keep it there. It's not looking likely at this point, so I may just gut it all.

Even stranger still, was THIS thing



Talking to Roguetoaster, maybe was a central temp control system? Maybe had an exterior temp probe. Apparently there was some wiring that extended out into the fender linings. I don't know, it's weird as fuck.

Then, fast forward another day. Out for the day, enjoying the weather and shit. Come back home, crank closed the roof and binding, popping, and plastic explosions. Something seems to have gotten caught before the roof was between tilt/close, started binding. A normal person would have stopped messing with it, but I cranked it further and made a mess of it.



I fuck with it further, ending up in a seemingly worse spot.



Soo, that's all fun. Starting with the crank handle, pulling some of it apart. The roof gearbox appears to be leaking some fluid, so I think it cracked pretty bad.

Basically, i'm just going to buy a full set of used mechanical roof bits, and start working towards it after getting back from xmas. Not what I intended to be working on first, but whatever.

[benge100]

I really want to see these pix.....

[KIRIEIW]

Just read this whole thread, also would like pics!

[Heitzke]

Damn! Sorry guys, I didn't even realize the pics weren't working externally.

Tried to link them all from Google photos, but I can probably just see them since i'm authenticated on my end. I'll get them moved over to a more traditional source for sharing.

edit: pics all visible now?

[KI4UJO]

They work now! I might see you around town - I'm in Mount Juliet, nice to know that we have a touring here.

[Heitzke]

They work now! I might see you around town - I'm in Mount Juliet, nice to know that we have a touring here.

Nice! Hopefully I do, cause I'd love to see what a M52 E30 is all about

[Kershaw]

Nooo! You never force the sunroof!

And yes that's the corner of my house. Haha. And the e36 and explorer.

[Julien]

Nice pickup (pick-up?) haha. Toss an m42 in it and some coilover :)


I'd remove the sunroof gearbox before doing anything else. At that point you can try to gently get the panel back to a closed position

[KI4UJO]

Nice! Hopefully I do, cause I'd love to see what a M52 E30 is all about

I haven't had it out much - right now, it has no interior, bumpers or front valence (completing a euro bumper swap + rust repair). Personally, I love the M52, its a great motor for the car.

Hate it for your sunroof. To ask, how'd you get the city bulb out from inside the light? I've got one in mine and really don't want to remove the lens.

[Heitzke]

Haha yeah, so much regret in messing with the roof without digging into the mechanical functions a bit first. Ah well, i'll quickly be acquainted with much of the car by the time i'm done.

Only thing i'm really unsure of now, is my headliner is a little different than most.



Since I don't have that front plastic bit, i'm a little concerned about really hacking up this old ass headliner. Something *needs* to be done about it eventually, I'm just dragging my feet on that being one of the first projects.

[Heitzke]

To ask, how'd you get the city bulb out from inside the light? I've got one in mine and really don't want to remove the lens.

Luckily it was sitting fairly loose up towards the top, so I just flipped the whole light assembly and shook it around violently until it made it towards the top. Very scientific approach

[Heitzke]

Few little odds and ends coming together, kinda. Local pull-a-part got an '91 E30 in! I celebrated a little bit thinking that the car would still be mostly complete since it had only been there 3 days...and I was wrong.



Damn thing was gutted.



Had a whole list of crap I wanted to grab, but ended up with a good driver's ZKW driving light and an unbroken blower motor for $44 total. I'll take what I can get I guess.

Little parts pile growing (you can see all my sunroof stuff too)



Started working on the sunroof situation a bit, pulling off all interior bits I could, as well as accessible sunroof parts. Slowly made progress, and was able to pull the broken cable ends back out.

Also nice to see that the headliner doesn't require windshield removal



Inevitably, i'm making a bit of a mess with it, but I need this stuff fixed to actually keep out the coming bad weather.



Here you can see some of the remnants of the sunroof cable ends :facepalm:



NOW, my biggest question here is how the cables actually come apart from these plastic ends? The channel for them to enter back through the sunroof is tiny. Disassembly was easy since everything is all busted, but now...





There's no way those things fit back through the roof channel the same way they came out.

[Heitzke]

Well, I finally understand how the sunroof mechanicals function. That being said, semi-functional stuff in place





The cables aren't lined up at all, but whatever, I have a working gearbox in place, a handle with functional ball detents and a track that slides back and forth.

[jasonbk]

I have same headliner (came with less optioned e30s - as mine was originally 316i) - I cleaned it up with magic erasers and it worked pretty well.